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Poetry lost and found

I’ve written too many poems, many of them bad. And I’ve lost track of dozens. Most of the time, that’s for the best. But I’ve been in a rut and looking at some of these older pieces just might be able to inspire something in me. It’s worth a try anyway.

Do most poetry writers find they remember so little of what they’ve written, or is this my special curse?

Snip


Betta Splendens

Bowls gloom with dirt,
twelve ounces each, short-lipped
and deep. Then water rots
clamped fins to dying lace.

In old Siam, the puddles bloom
with fish, seeded by flood, unfurl
scale petals out behind, all blue
and red. They die in mud
or jarred like pickles.

In which Albert is a sponge


The vet says that the strange imbalance in Albert’s pupils is not a sign that he’s on kitty dope, but if that’s true, why does he sit in the water fountain?

These are the questions that fuel science.

(Excerpt from an old poem)

iv.

Woodpeckers morse the neighbor maple, frilled
against the grey cool days, the old birds dying.

Then came stalking times when all but Albert
found the screen holes and birds flung themselves
just out of reach.

Lie down with morons, get up in Ohio

My coworker is a moron. We’re not talking your run-of-the-mill stupid person here, but a Grade A moron. When hired, she claimed to have computer experience. Guess how she reboots a computer? By turning the monitor off.

But I live in Ohio. What can I expect?

The recent kerfluffle over Kansas’s “Intelligent Design” decision made me wonder why no one was throwing stink bombs at Ohio. Yep, the Buckeye State redefined science long before those Kansan chuckleheads. “The other proposal is backed by intelligent-design advocates and is similar to language in Ohio’s standards.” Not content to be the birthplace of aviation, nope, we have to be the birthplace of ID ideation.

I’m so proud. It makes me want to hug Bob Taft until his eyes pop. But then I’d be a little closer to these thugs than I’d prefer to be. I’ll content myself with sending imaginary secular greeting cards and shopping Target.

Not with a bang, but a whimper

I tried blogging before and discovered that I’m wretched at it. And trying again definitely goes against all of my beliefs in “If at first you don’t succeed, give up and take a nap.”

We’ll see how it goes. I can’t actually die of this, right?

****

It’s been ten years since I bought my house. Ten years. And I can barely remember the anguish I felt when it when into contract just minutes before I made my offer.

I wanted it. I got it.

And I hate it.

I hate its drafts and its street and its neighbors and its windows. I hate every last squeak in the floor or ill-fitting door or the bad-tempered boiler in the basement. People tell me it’s pretty, but it’s just an eyesore to me, bad tempered and badly plumbed.

In ten years, did I gain vision or lose it? The skeleton of my ambitions gets shorter, and brittle.

Oh well. It’s nothing a well-placed tornado can’t fix.